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THE UMIOM! ITSl^lAMGERS ! ! 

AND HOW THEY CAN BE AVERTED. 



LETTER FROM SAMUEL J. TILDEN 



> . ^0 



HON. WliJJAM KENT. 



<r%lf ^«^^^— 

To the Ho,l William Keut : \ ^^^ P«^ ^^°t- ^^ ^he whole number ; extremely 

, ,. I rare except la cases where the issue on which the 
Dear Sir : Among my early memories of pubhc ^ ^^^.^^ ^^^^^ .^ ^^^^^ ^p ^^ ^^.^ specially some lo- 
aftairs, during the tariGf and nullification contro- , ^^^.^^^^ j^ ^\,^^\r,g the policy which emerges from 
versies, I recollect the illustrious name of your fa- ^ ^^^ conflict, the minority acts a part scarcely less 
father, James Kent, signed to a call for a meeting , j^^^ ^^^^^^t j^an the majority ; and the dissentients 
of the citizens of New York, to recommend to Con- , ^^^ ^^^^^ prepared to accept the result. 

THE PROCESS OF SELF-GOVEBXMEST. 

Such is the process by which the will of all the 
parts of the community is collected, averaged and 
represented in the policy finally agreed upon. This 
is the method of self-government. 

WHY SELF-GOVERXMEXT IS BEST. 

The reason why self-government is better than 



gress the adoption of measures of concihation tow- 
ards our brethren of the South. The association 
recurs to my mind as often as I think of your name 
on the Union electoral ticket, which I consider a 
most wise and necessary endeavor to rescue our 
country in a far more perilous political conjuncture. 
I had no agency in putting it there ; but I know it 

represents no partisan interest, prejudice or pas- 1 ^^^^^.^^^2^^ jj^. ^^^ ^^^ m&.w, or by a foreign 
siou, no man's vanity or ambition, and still less any i p^^pj^^ jg ^j^^^. ^j^g policy evolved by this process 
illiberal opinion or feeling towards natives of foreign jg generally better adapted to the actual condition 



lands who have chosen this for their home. It re- 



triotic devotion to the country, and serious and 



of the society on which it is to operate. Govera- 



presents nothing less worthy or less noble than pa- ^^^^ jj^ ^^g ^2^ of^ea f^jig jq understand, but it 



usually defers. Government by a foreign people 



well-considered solicitude for the welfare of the | neither understands nor defers. It has no adapta- 
hitherto fortunate people of these, as yet, United j ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ wants or temper of the governed. It is, 
States. I share the sentiments which animate you | therefore, about the worst government that can be 
in the present crisis. I recall your desire when j jmao-ined. 

last we met, that I should express to our citizens , ^^^^^^^^^^^^.^ system of local self-goverxmext. 
the convictions often avowed to you. An occasion j ^^^ fathers understood this truth. They had 
has arisen which commits me to do so. I have j ^^.jg^ ^^^ exneriment. They had been driven to 
chosen the form of a letter ; I dedicate that letter , revolution by George the Third, said to be the 
to you. It is a testimony of my respect and afiec- | „ ^^^^ ^^x^^^i man in his own dominions," and by 
tion, and that we think the same things concerning j ^^^ ^^^^,_^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ cordially 
our country. Your interest in the great theme will j ^j^g British people sustained whatever was worst in 
compensate all deficiencies in the offering. , ^^jj ^i^g policy of monarch and minister. They fore- 

the use of parties. I saw that a single government, exercising all the 

The tendency of parties is to draw the various po- j powers of society over the people destined to oc- 
litical elements into two divisions, and to equalize j cupy so vast a region as the United States, and em- 
those divisions. The minority adopts enough of ; bracing the elements of such diversities of interest, 
the ideas of the majority to attract those who are I industry, opinion, habits and manners, would be in- 
nearest to the line of division ; and the majorit7, in tolerable to bear and impossible to continue. They, 



struggling to retain them, makes concessions. The 
issue IS thus constantly shifting " with the waver- 
ing tide of battle," until the policy, which at last 
prevails has become adjusted so as nearly to repre- 
sent the average sense of the whole people. It is 
rare in our political experience that the differ- 



therefore, largely adopted the federative idea in the 
mixed system which they established ; and vesting 
only the powers appertaining to our foreign rela- 
tions and to certain specified common objects of a 
domestic nature in a federative agency, they left the 
great residuary mass of governmental functions to 



ence between the majority and the minority equals | the several states. 



2 






ANOMALOUS CnAItACTEK OF THE KEPUliLICAX PARTV. j 

In the practical working of this beautiful but ; 
complex system, the Republican party is a pbeno- '; 
nienon, new and startling. It is the first instim e 
in which any partisan oriranization Las been able , 
to compete, with any prospect of success, for as- 
cendancy in our federative government, without ; 
being national in its structure, wilhout being com- 
posed of majorities— or of minorities able to com- 1 
pete eti'cctively with majorities — in all the states of' 
both great sections of the Union. The Republican i 
party has no practical existence in all the fifteen ! 
southern states. In a few points, where the five i 
border states touch the North, it has a nominal ex- j 
istence, but without any appreciable power over 
the opinion or action of those states. In the ten ' 
other states it has no affiliations whatever. 

THAT SECTIOXAL CITARACTER INnEUENT. 

This condition of things is not an accident. It.-j 
is the result of five years of earnest discussion be- j 
fore the southern people of the character and ob- : 
jects of the Republican party. It is produced j 
against the strongest motives which influence the | 
formation of party connections. Ties ot ancient ' 
association between most of its members, and the i 
dissevered minorities of the South— fragments of j 
the old whig party, anxious to beat their local '• 
rivals, and impelled towards alliances by the in- ] 
stiuct of self-preservation ; common opposition to j 
an existing administration ; the prospect of com- 
mon success, and of sharing in a political ascen- 
dancy — all these potential causes united have ut- 
terly failed to draw to it any considerable numbers 
of adherents in all the South, against the per- ; 
vading, immense, overwhelming public opinion of 
all those states. 

I speak not now of causes. I simply state the ! 
fact. Our Republican friends will say that their po 
■licy is misunderstood by the southern people. 
There is undoubtedly a serious misunderstanding 
■between the Republican party and the whole south- 
ern people. In what does this misunderstanding 
■consist? It is easier for the Republican parly to 
•mistake as to the ctlects of its policy on the inter- 
ests of the South, than for the whole southern peo- 
jple to mistake the real nature of that policy. 

I am apt to pay some respect to the unanimous 
opinion of great commonwealths on a ciuestion pe- 
•culiarly affecting themselves. 

JIEPUBLICAN ASCBN'DEKOy IS PRACTICALLy POREIGX 
GOVEUNMEXT. 

If such an organization as the Republican party 
should acquire complete possession of the federa- 
livo government, what sort of a system would it be ? 
To the people of the fifteen states it would be a 
,forcinn government. It would be erected over 
'them 'through the forms of their constitution ; but 



that would not afTect its practical character. None 
of their citizens would have concurred in bringing 
the administration into existence. None of their 
public opinion would be represented in that admin- 
istration. 

PERILOUS SUtJ.TECT O:' TUE COXTROVERSV. 

Now, what is the ([uestion between the eighteen 
noi^hem states and the fifteen southern state? of 
the confederacy, out of which arises a state of 
things so novel and so extraordinary •' 

It is a controversy — (how far of mere opinion 
and how far operating practically, I will presently 
discu8s I — it is a controversy which touches the rc- 
letionsof two races, being eight and a half millions 
of whites and four millions of blacks, composing 
all the'population of these fifteen states ; relations 
which constitute a whole system of industry, fur- 
nishing their staple exports and their excbanges 
with us and with all the world ; relations which 
thus involve a vast interest in properly— not less 
than three thousand millions of dollars — permeating 
these fifteen states ; relations which are the basis 
of the habits of families and of society in all these 
commonwealths, and of their social order, a shock 
to which IS associated in the mind of the dominant 
race, with a pervading sense of danger to the life of 
every human being and the honor of every woman. 

This nature of the subject matter, out of which 
the controversy arises, explain.'? and accounts for a 
state of parties so anomalous. Such a disorder in 
the voluntary machinery by which popular govern- 
ment is carried on, is in itself serious ; but it is 
more important as a symptom of a malady in the 
body-politic, deeply seated and f<ir more dangerous. 

SECTIOXALISM OF PARTIES. 

Sectionalism of parties has hitherto never gone 
beyond a little predominance of a party in the states 
of one section and a little predominance of the other 
party in the states of another section. In that mild 
furm its tendency alarmed the heroic mind of Wash- 
ington, and drew from him an impressive warning 
in his *l*"arewell Address. Sectionalism is now 
threatening to become absolute in a predominance 
of a party in eighteen states which has no practical 
exustence in fifteen states. 

Sectionalism of parties has hitherto been founded 
in difTereoces upon subjects comparatively unim- 
portant. It touched nothing deeper than the de- 
tails of a tariff, when it called out all the patriotic 
courage and energy ot Jackson to avert its dangers. 

Sectionalism is now founded upon differences of 
opinion reaching to the very structure of civil so- 
ciety in fifteen states. 

With the prudent and conservative Monroe medi- 
ating at the head of the government, and with Clay 
I in the House of Representatives, exerting for pacifi- 
cation all his matchless power over assemblies, 



sectionalism, not of popular parties, but in Con- 
gress, on a question liise the present, tbcugh, in the 
mitigated form of the Missouri controversy, woke 
Jefferson, as he expressed it, "like a flre-bell at 
night," from the repose of Iiis retirement, and made 
him for the Grsttime almost despair of the republic. 
Sectionalism on a question ot the same nature is now 
worn into the minds of the people by five years of 
organized agitation. It has become the sole basis 
of existing party divisions, and threatens to seize 
all the powers of the government. 

Each of the elements of evil, which, of a feebler 
type, and in an iucijsieut state, filled these heroes 
and statesmen of our revolutionary and constitu- 
tional era with apprehension, is now grown to a 
magnitude which they couid never have conceived ; 
and these elements, thus grown, are conjoined into 
one monstrous malady. And jet every shallow 
sophister who can pen a line for the skimming eye 
of thoughtless readers, wiser than Washington, 
braver than Jackson, more skilled in our complex 
government than JetFerson, scoffs at the danger, 
and scoffs at all who see it as insincere or timid ! 

EDUCATION' OF THE PEOPLE FOR DISU.NIOX. 

A sectional division, upon a sectional issue, of the 
great parties which organi^sc and represent the con- 
flicting opinions of society, and which compete for 
the control of the machinery of government ia a 
system of confederated states, rapidly and effectual 
ly educates the people for disunion. 

It is not the ordinary case of party escitementcs 
between citizens united in the same community. 
There, misapprehensions are removed and animosi- 
ties assuaged by mutual contact; adversaries min- 
gle in the transactions of business and in the inter- 
course of society ; meet at the same church in a 
common worship, and on a thousand occasions of 
familiar and friendly association ; they are brought 
together and kept together by common friends; 
they are interlaced with each other by the number- 
less ties which spring up, and grow around, and 
grow over individuals living in one community; 
they cannot move their houses, shops, or farms ; 
they cannot tear asunder the social ligaments which 
bind them together. 

Now imagine parties such as we have often 
known them, in their mutual misapprehensions and 
mutual injustice, and their passionate animosities ; 
one party dominating in eighteen states on one side 
of a geographical line, and the other composing the 
whole people of fifteen states on the other side of 
that line. They know each other only through 
their excited imaginations. The antipathies of 
each are directed against a distant people. Each 
is organized into states, with complete govern- 
ments, holding the purse and wielding the sword. 
They are held together only by a compact of con- 
federation. 



FEDERATIVE STSTEM 1KCUEASE3 SCCH DANGERS. 

Will their mutual animosities be equally safe, 
equally harmless as the party controversies of indi- 
viduals united in one community? The strain, the 
shock of the collision between these organized 
masses, must be vastly greater. The single, slender, 
conventional tie which holds states in confederation, 
has no strength compared with the compacted, in- 
tertwining fibres which bind the atoms of human 
society into one formation of natural growth. 

The masters in political science who constructed 
our system, preserved the state governments as bul- 
warks of the freedom of individuals and localities 
against oppression from centralized power. They 
recognised no right of constitutional secession, but 
they left revolution organized, whenever it should 
be demanded by the public opinion of a state ; left 
it with power to snap the tie of confederation as a 
nation might break a treaty, and to repel coercion 
as a nation might repel invasion. They caused us 
to depend, iu a great measure, upon the public opin- 
ion of the states in order to maintain a confedera- 
ted Union. They intended to make it necessary for 
us, in every reasonable extent, to respect that pub- 
lic opinion. 

How long could an organized popular agitation in 
England against France, or in Franca again&t Eng- 
land, continue without actual hostilities, especially 
if embracing a majority of the people and the gov- 
ernmeatay Wars have as often been produced by 
popular passions as by the policy of rulers ; but I 
venture to say that in the causes of all such wars 
during a century past, there has not been so much 
material for offence as could be found every year in 
the fulminations of a party swaying the govern- 
ments of many northern states against the entire 
social and industrial systems of fifteen of our sister 
states ; — so much to repel the opinion, to alienate 
the sentiments and to wound the pride. 

MODERATE REPUDLICAXS. 

It would be doing injustice to multitudes of pat- 
riotic citizens who belong to the Republican party 
to impute to them extreme opinions or intentions 
consciously hostile to the peace and safety of the 
southern states. Antagonism to the democratic 
party, habitual with many who were whigs ; misap- 
prehensions and excitement growing out of the re- 
peal of the Jlissouri Compromise and the Kansas 
controversy ; opposition to various incidents in the 
policy of the existing democratic Administration ; 
the desire for change and for new combioations 
which arises under a continuous ascendency of 
any party in our country — all these motives of po- 
litical action have arrayed in the Republican ranks 
many men of moderate opinions, who, if they saw 
the real nature and inevitable results of a sectional 
party organization, would recoil from them in just 
and patriotic alarm. 



FALSE POSITION OF THKiu pAUTr. j formation ; and expressed the conviction tbiit the 

It is not the purposes of such men but the practi- | evil would have reached a dangerous, if not fatal 

cal attitude of their party which constitutes the evil, j point of culoiination when a purely northern party 

That party is in a false position. Without tlie coun- i should have found itself able to electa President 

tcrpoisc which would be the effect of its affiliation I on a pitched battle with the southern states over 



w'Uh the opposition element in the southern states, 
freed from any such necessity for moderation, com- 
peting for popular favor in the ]N^crtb alone, and, 
therefore, addressing itself exclusively to northern 
opinions, prejudices and passions, it has been 
tteadily drifting into a more vehement, a less dis- 
criminating and a blinder antagonism to the South, 
and yielding to the dominion of extreme ideas and 
of the more violent elements which it contains. 
Without anything to represent it in the southern 
states, it has no means to resist the ineritable ten- 
dency there to impute to it purposes even beyond 
thos=i which it really entertains ; and uo means of 
inspiring confidence, allaying apprehension, or con- 
ciliating opinion among the masses in the localities 
of the South. 

t:iu necessary consequesces. 



questions and ideas which thrill to the very life- 
centres of southern society. 

SUMMART OF THE DISCUSSION THUS FAR. 

I have now considered the anomalous nature of 
the Republican party as an organization; I have 
shown how, as it assumes the powers of our federa- 
tive system, it subverts the essential character of 
that system, and erects in practice a foreign govern- 
ment over fifteen states. I have pointed out bow, 
in the meantime, such a division of parties is edu- 
cating the people for disunion; in what manner it 
ripens its fatal fruits, and to what maturity they 
have already approached. I have indicated the 
subject of the controversy between the northern 
majorities and the southern people, out of which 
this condition of things arises; demonstrated how 
near it is to the very structure of civil, social and 



It is thus that the divergence between these ma- industrial life in all the South ; and inferred that it 



jo:itiea of the North on the one side and the whole 
people of the South on the other, has been for years 
increasing. Extremes on the one side provoke ex- 
tremes on the other. Alienation, mutual distrust, 
misapprehension of each others motives and ob- 
jects, animosities, and above all and worse than all, 
convictions and principles which induce each to 



13 only such a subject of controversy that could 
create such a state of parties ; and conversely, that 
such a state of parties, on such a subject, is a con- 
centrated evil and an accumulated danger. I have 
invoked the maxims deduced from the experience 
of all mankind, and our own accepted theories of 
self-government to justifying me in stating the im- 



dictate impracticable conditions of reconciliation, j mense presumption, that the southern people un- 
are setting deeper and deeper into the masses un- j derstand the ellccts upon themselves of the Repub- 
der the inlluence of systematic sectional agitation. | lican organization and policy better than the Re- 
It would be strange if this immense and power- j publicans do ; and that, at all events, the nearly 
ful popular machinery swaying the state gov- j unanimous judgment of fifteen great communities 
ernmeots of both sections, whicli has been em- i ought to be respected ; that their judgment, as to 
ployed for five years in dividing the country geo- the establishment over them of any affirmative mea- 
graphically, had not cloven down between the \ sures exclusively affecting themselves, ought to be 
masses of the people in the two sections a chasm j conclusive. 

deeper and wider and more difficult to close up n remains to analyse the avowed proposition of 
than ever existed before. the Republican party to the people of the South. 

CHRONIC SECTIONALISM IS INEVITABLE DisiNioN. Are tbc soutbem people to be convinced, or is 

If such a division of parties, founded upon such i the Republican party to recede from its principles, 
antagonism of opinions, habits and interests iu- j its policy, and its organization? In what manner 
volvingthe systems of industry and of society, ex- I is a reconciliation to be effected, and upon what 
isting at the North and in the South, becomes | terms? What ought to be the basis of areconcilia- 
chronic,its natural and inevitable result must be tion? Will the Republican party make it volunta- 
disunion. The cord of fraternal sentiment and , rily, or must the people cf t^e North cast off the 
common opinion which holds the sections together, [ Republican party as an element of disease and dis- 
cannot, by any possibility, endure the gradual, ' cord, and thus restore harmony and health to our 
6teady wear of these unceasing conflicts, and the federative system? 

ever augmenting vioitnce of the shock of repealed If the Republican party entrenches itself in the 
collisions between the popular masses which the Presidency, will the constitution of our body politic 
two sections embody. await the tardy I'emedy, or will it perish in the pro- 

This is, to me, no cow opinion. I communicated cess towards restoration ? 
it in writing in IS'u, to a gentleman now eminent These are grave questions. Let us proceed to 
in the Republican party, before he engaged iu its consider them. 



CnAEACTEn, 



AIMS AND POLICV OF THE REPUELICAX 
PARTY. 



What is the character of the Kepnbllcan party ? 
What are the aims '? What is to be its practical 
policy, in case it gains possession of the govern- 
ment ■? 

ORGANIZED AGITATION AGAINST SLAVERY. 

1. It is an organized agitation on the general 
question of slavery, mainly irrespective of the 
practical application of its conclusions to any pro- 
posed measure of legislation or administration by 
the federal government. It is not easy to define 
the exact limit where the liberty of philosophical 
speculation or abstract discussion ends, and an 
ofl'ence against good neighborhood — whether of in- 
dividuals, families or states— begins. But it is very 
clear that the Republican party has passed that 
boundary; for an organized agitation by a majority 
of one community, including its government, 
against the social or industrial system of a neigh- 
boring and friendly community is an offence which 
leads to alienation and hostility, if not to actual 
war. Even if we assume that the exclusion of 
slavery from the territories is within the legitimate 
sphere of the federal government, it cannot be pre- 
tended that the general character of the discussion 
kept up by the Kepublican party is subordinate to 
that end. Indeed, the territorial aspect of the con- 
troversy has almost entirely disappeared. Instead 
of inquiring how far it is the right and the duty of 
the northern states through the federal government 
to give effect on the territorial question to the gene- 
ral ideas they might be assumed to entertain, the 
orators and journals, which represent the Republi- 
can party are almost exclusively occupied in ex- 
citing the hostility of the people against slavery 
as a system, irrespective of the territories, and 
often the intention is avowed to act by indirect 
means upon slavery within the states. 

" MORAL SUASION " THRODOn OUR FEDERATIVE GO- 
VERNMENT. 

Among those means is a gigantic system of 
" moral suasion," as Mr. Seward calls it in one of 
his recent speeches, moral coercion in fact, by which 
it shall propagate its ideas among the people of the 
southern states against their jiresent social and in- 
dustrial systems, through permanent party organi- 
zations dominating in the northern states, swaying 
the northern governments, and finally through the 
federative government of all the states. Mr. Seward 
does not say whether the postmasters and other 
ofhcersof the federative government are to be made 
little centres of anti-slavery opinion; but he seems 
to think that all the usual methods by which parties 
act may be properly applied to the end. Now the 
states are as sovereign, with respect to slavery 
within their own borders as any foreign nation. If 
we were by " moral suasion " to attempt to apply 



our ideas in respect to the only rightful form of go- 
vernment, or in respect to the freedom of the press 
to the French people, through our minister at Paris, 
he would be dismissed, and if found to be acting 
under our instructions, we should become objects of 
just hostilities on the part of the French govern- 
ment. A similar experiment in the southern states 
would probably result in the expulsion of the fede- 
ral officials, if not in a civil war. According to the 
principles of public law and in all moral aspects, 
such interference in the internal affairs of a state 
would be more inexcusable when she were united 
with us in a confederation, than if she were in all 
respects a foreign nation. And the difficulty of the 
case is, that even if the endeavor were fairly made 
to confine the agitation to the territorial question, 
it would be impossible so to confine it in practice, 
on the basis of opinion which characterizes the Re- 
publican party, and gives it all its vitality. 

FALSE RULE OF LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 
BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. 

2. The rule of moral right and duty which, I 
think, may be fairly said to be generally adopted 
by the Republican party, is stated by Mr. Seward, 
in his speech at Lansing: " I will favor, as long as 
I can," said he, "within the limits of constitutional 
action, the decrease and diminution of African 
slavery in all the states." 

THEORY OF THIS RULE. 

The theory is, thac slavery is a wrong, without 
reference to any condition of time, place, or cir- 
cumstances ; that the limit of our moral responsi- 
bility for the wrong is fixed exactly according to 
our legal and constitutional power to remove it ; 
that it is, therefore, not only our right but our duty 
to exert whatever legal or constitutional power we 
possess for its removal. 

This theory runs through all Mr. Seward's 
speeches; and is, I think, the master-key to the 
whole argument by which the Republican leaders 
address the popular mind. 

ITS PRACTICE. 

The practical application and necessary conse- 
quences of this theory, can be gleaned from the 
speeches of Mr. Seward. 

INDIRECT ACTION ON SLAVERY WITHIN THE STATES. 

In his recent speech at Dubuque, he states what 
it is not proposed to do, in this guarded manner : 
" We do not roft against slavery in Virginia. We 
do not authorize Abraham Lincoln or the Congress 
ol, the United States to pa.ys any laics about slavery 
in Virginia." Observe how carefully his language 
is framed not to disclaim artj of the forms of ini/i- 
rcct action upon slavery within the states. 

CHANGING THE CONSTITUTION DY EX(;LUDING ONE 
AND ADMITTING THE OTHER CLASS OF STATES. 

In his Rochester speech he thus indicates the 
constitutional mode of abolishing slavery within the 
states : 



6 



" It is true that tliey (the fathers) necessaTily ar. J. exposed to invasion frcm Englaud, France and 
wisely modified this policy of freedom, by leavinji Spain." The cocslitulioa not only contains an 
it to the several states, affected as they were by i express covenant for the protection of each of the 
different circumstances, to abolish slavery in states against " domestic violence" and foreign 



their own way and at their own pleasure instead of 
confiding that duty to Congress. 

* * * * •::• * 

" But the very nature of these modifications for- 
tifies my position that the fathers knew that tlh 
two systems could not enduve ivitJdnthe Cnion, and 
expected that within a short period slavery would 
disappear forever. Moreover, in order that these 
modifications might not altogether defeat their 
grand design of a republic maintaining uuirersa^ 
ejualif;/, thcij 2»'orid"il that two-tliirds of tin sfafe.s 
mirjM amend the constUittion. 

''It remains to say on this point only one word, 
to guard against misapprehension. If these states 
are to again become universally slaveholding, I do 
not pretend to say with what violations of the 
constitution that end shall be accomplished. On 
the other hand, while I do confidently believe and 
hope that my country will yet become a land of 
universal freedom, I do not expect that it will 
be made so otherwise than through the action of 
the several states co-operatinq icith th.K federal (jovern- 
ment, and all acting in strict conformity with their 
respective constitutions." 

The mode provided by the constitution for its own 
amendment, is mot accurately stated by Mr. Sewaid 
in the above extract, but the plan of applying it so 
es to abolish slavery within the states is sutKciently 
disclosed. In a recent speech, he proposes to abso- 
lutely exclude from admission into the Union all 
new states having slaves, and to apply our northern 
system to all news'ates; evidently looking to the 
multiplicition of the free states until their number 
shall enable them to alter the constitution and 
" the grand design ot a republic maintaining uni- 
versal equality" shall be consummated, without 
the consent and in defiance of the will of the south- 
ern states. 

RE-ORr.ANIZlNG THE SITREME COUUT. 

In a speech in the Senate he proposed to reor- 
gani/.e the Supreme Court of the United States for 
the purpose of reversing the decision upon the rel- 
ative rights of the states and their citizens on the 
question of slavery. 

niSCAXDING TIIK AIUIV AND NAVY. 

And at Lansing he declared that it was his " duty 
aa a patriot" to go for having "no army and navy" 
of the Union, because their "whole object" was 
" that slaves may not escape from the slave states 
into the free, and that freed or emancipated negroes 
in the free states may not enter and introduce civil 
war into the slave states, and because that, if we 
provoke a foreign enemy, the southern frontier is 



" invasion," but in its preamble declares that to 
"ensure domestic tranquillity" and "provide for 
the common defence" were among the very objects 
for which it was instituted. And yet Mr. Seward 
avows the startling doctrine that for the very reason 
that the army and navy are used to carry out these 
objects in respect to the southern states they ought 
to be disbanded. 

BIDDING RKVOLUnOX "GOOD SPEED." 

In his recent speech at Madison, he declares that 
" it is by a simple rule that he has studied the con- 
stitution," which rule is that " no human being," 
" no race," should be " kept down in their efforts 
to rise to a higher state of liberty and happiness"; 
but that if any such " would rise, I say to them, in 
God's name, good speed." 

THE PEACTICAL REST'I-T. 

The result he stated in a speech at an early day : 
" It (slavery) can and must be abolished, and you 
and I must do it." 

OBJECT OF TEACniXG THE DOCTRINE OF THE " IRRE- 
PRESSIBLE CONFLICT." 

And in order to incite the northern mind to a 
crusade against slavery in the states, as well as the 
territories, to blind the eye of the North and still 
its conscience to the aggressive character of the 
movement against the social and industrial systems 
of our sister states, violating alike the express com- 
pacts of the constitution and the principles of pub- 
lic law which define the relations of independent 
sovereignties, he adopts the fallacious theory in- 
vented by Mr. Lincoln, of the " irrepressible con- 
fiict." He teaches not ns a doctiine of abstract 
philosophy, but a practical necessity, that the 
northern states cannot preserve their own social 
and industrial systems without overthrowing those 
of the southern states; that " the rye fields and 
wheat fields of Massachusetts and New York must 
be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture 
and to the production of slaves, and Boston and 
New York become occe more markets for trade in 
the bodies and souls of men," or, "the cotton and 
rice fields of South Carolina and the sugar planta- 
tions of Louisiana" be " tilled by free labor." 
Having thus invested the crusade with all the 
sanctions of the sacred necessity of self defence, 
he leads it forward, by the methods and means 
which I have exhibited, through artful evasions of 
the forms of the constitution to violate the sub- 
stance of its obligations. 

PREVALENCE OF IMPRACTICABLE IDEAS. 

I certainly do not impute to every member of the 
Republican party such sentiments. On the con- 



trary, there are large numbers of patriotic citizens 
attached to that patty wholly incapable of adopting 
theories so wild, so fanatical, so revolutionary ; and 
I admit, that even the mass of those who assent to 
them, do not see their true character, or the in- 
evitable disasters of attempting to reduce them to 
practice. 

But, I cannot fail to see in the mind of every 
second man I meet among the Republicans, the 
prevalence of ideas upon which it is impracticable 
to administer a confederated government. I la- 
ment it as a consequence of a division of parties, in 
which the northern people know neither the sub- 
ject of the controversy nor its true bearing, nor 
their antagonists, except through their imagina- 
tions. 
MR. Seward's relation to the republican party. 

Mr. Seward represents the greatest state of the 
Union in the Senate ; is of mature age and experi- 
ence; and has more partisans and more practical 
power over the Republican mind and the Republi- 
can organization than any other one of its mem- 
bers. He is its representative man. He has recent- 
ly traversed the northern states, with social revolu- 
tion dropping from his lips at every step, amid the 
acclamations of the masses of the Republican par- 
ty. And yet men are found who ascribe to the pre- 
judices of the South, or to misrepresentations ol 
the aims of the Republican party, the complete ■ 
alienation and repulsion of the unanimous public 
opinion ol the southern people, which undeniably 
exists. 

ORIGIN OF THESE FALSE SYSTEMS. 

The origin of all this evil is in the rule ef conduct 
to which I have adverted, as generally adopted by 
the Republicans, and indeed to a considerable ex- 
tent accepted by the northern mind. 

RULE FOR CONSTRCIXG AND EXECUTING TEE CONSTI- 
TUTION. 

As a rule of right and duty for the construction 
and execution of the constitution, the theory main- 
tained by Mr. Seward, and 1 10 extensively accepted, 
is entirely fallacious. No contract governing com- 
plicated transactions or relations between men, and 
applying permanently through the changes inevita- 
ble in human affairs, can be effectual if either party 
intended to be bound by it is at liberty to construe 
or execute its provisions in a spirit of hostility to 
the substantial objects of these provisions. Espe- 
cially is this true of a compact of confederation be- 
tween the states, where there can be no common 
arbiter invested with authorities and powers equal- 
ly capable with those which courts possess betiveen 
individuals for determining and enforcing a just 
construction and execution of the instrument. Mr. 
Seward sees, the public mind of the South sees 
more clearly, that an institution of the peculiar na- 



ture of slavery cannot long exist within the states 
if the powers of the federative government are to 
be swayed in active hostility to it, even though no 
violation ot the express letter of the constitution be 
perpetrated ; even though the hostile action be con- 
fined to a systematic use of the powers of the gov- 
ernment for the purposes of its destruction, and to a 
systematic abdication of the powers of protection 
when they incidentally affect slavery in operating 
upon the communities in which it exists. 

CRITERION OF MORAL RIGHT AND DUTY. 

The rule to which I have adverted is equally fal- 
lacious as a criterion of moral right and duty. No 
man has the right or duty to impose his own con- 
victioDS upon others, or to govern his own conduct 
in his relations with others, by his exclusive opin- 
ion or will. His right and duty in such cases are 
not absolute, but qualified. In practice, do man ^ 
can get along in his relations with others, even with 
those who are most subject to him, it he exercise 
his full legal or constitutional powers absolutely ac- 
cording to his individual opinion or will. No hus- 
band can live with his wife; no father with his 
children ; no partner with his associates on such 
terms. 

DUTY OF SELF-RESTRAINT. 

Now the idea I wish to inculcate is that there is 
no moral wrong in our accepting the self-restraint 
upon the exercise of even our undoubted legal and 
constitutional powers which the experience of man- 
kind has shown to be wise. 

It is upon the same idea, applied to our physical 
powers, that the public law of the world, which for- 
bids the intervention of one state in the purely in- 
ternal affairs of another, is built up. 

IDEA OF SELF-RESTRAINT THE BASIS OF OUR FEDERA 
TIVE SYSTEM. 

When our fathers entered upon the work of form- 
ing the Union, they found the states existing as in- 
dependent sovereignties. They might have con- 
structed a system which would have been imperial 
in its character, subjecting all the internal affairs 
of the states to the dominion of a centralized gov- 
ernment. Or they might have made the mixed sys- 
tem which they established imperial in respect to 
the subject of slavery within the states. Or, if 
failing to obtain the consent of any state to such a 
system, they might have excluded that state from 
the Union. 

NOr WRONG, BUT WISE AND RIGHT. 

Did they commit a moral wrong in choosing to 
leave the whole subject of slavery within each state 
to its separate judgment? I think that they did 
not. The decision which they made accorded with 
the whole theory on which they constructed the 
government. It was wise in itself. It was right. ; 
If the wisdom collected from the experience of the 
world iu regard to government is to be relied on^ 



8 



the distribution of powers they adopted was the 
best, the depository of the trust of working; outtlie 
problem of the superior and subject races within the 
states, if not perfect, was the safest which the na- 
ture of the case admitted. It is binding upon us 
not merely by the force of compact, not merely by 
a great principle of public law, but by its intrinsic 
wisdom and righteousness. 

OBJECTION' ANSWERED. j 

It is no answer to this reasoning to say that i 
the dominant race in a state where slayery exists ; 
is upon this question an interested party as well as 
the judge. Such is the position of the governing : 
power iu every human society ; and yet so wonder- \ 
ful are the laws of mutual action and influence be- 
tween the parts ot the social mechanism that it has ! 
generally been able to work out the welfare of all 1 
better than foreign government, and better than j 
propagandisni of any sj'stem by foreign force. The ! 
selfishness of the one, modified by so many re- i 
straints, is rarely so dangerous as the inexpert ig- 
norance and impracticable experiments of the oth- 
ers. I cannot think it a misfortune that, according 
to the system of our fathers, no appeal lies from the 
white man of the states where slavery exists to the 
white man of the other states. It is not a moral 
wrong to construe and execute the provisions of 
the constitution affecting this question, and even to 
extend and apply them to incidental questions not 
foreseen at its formation, in accordance with the 
plan, and in the spirit ot comprehensive wisdom in 
which that instrument was conceived. 

THE TERnlTORIAL QUESTIOX. 

8. I come now to the position of the Republican 
party on the territorial question. I understand that 
position to be, that it is the right and duty of the 
people, through the federative government, to ef- 
fectually prevent the extension of slavery beyond 
the geographical area in which it now exists within 
the present states. 

The Chicago platform applies the doctrine that 
all men are entitled to liberty, to the black race, 
without any qualification of place, time or circum- 
stances ; and applies the principle of restriction to 
all the territories. Jlr. Seward has lately restated 
the position of the Rei)ublican party, in these 
words: "Our responsibilities are limited to the 
states yet to come into the Union, and we will apply 
our system to them." 

Mr. Lincoln's speeches are full of denunciations 
of "the further spread of slavery," the restriction 
of which will, he predicts, " place it where the pub- 
lic mind will rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of ultimate extinction." " We know," says he, 
•' the opening of new countries tends to the perpetu- 
ation of the institution, and so does keep men in 
slavery who would otherwise be free." "Nothing," 
he again says, " will make you successful, but set- 



ting up a policy which shall treat the thing as 
wrong." * * * " This government is expressly 
charged with the duty of providing for the general 
welfare. We believe that the spreading out and 
perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the 
general welfare." * * * " To repress this 
thing, we think, is providing for the general wel- 
fare." 

TnEORY ON WHICH ACSOLFTE RESTRICTION IS FOUNDED. 

The philosophical idea on which the policy of re- 
striction rests is, that if the .system of slavery be 
absolutely confined to a fixed geographical area, 
the emigration of the white race who wish to retain 
the sj'stem, and of the black race held under it, will 
be restrained ; that both races will go on increasing 
by births; that the population within that area be- 
coming more and more dense, the cost of subsisting 
the slave will press with constantly augmenting 
force upon the value of his labor, until the master 
ceases to derive any surplus, and voluntarily eman- 
cipates the slave. 

This idea is sometimes expressed in the affirma- 
tive sense of extinguishing slavery ; and sometimes 
in the negative sense of refusing to perpetuate it; 
but the means and the results are identical in both 
I cases. 

I 015 JECT OF THE POLICV AND MODE OF ITS ENFORCE- 

I 

j MENT. 

' The policy of restriction aims to control, directly 
and immediately, the distribution between the oc- 
cupied and unoccupied portions of the continent 
belonging to us, of the eight and a halt millions of 
whites and four millions of blacks now co-existing 
in the fifteen southern states and of all their de- 
scendants, so long as the present relation between 
the two races shall continue. It aims indirectly 
and eventually to subvert the relation which now 
exists between the two races. The Republican par- 
ty proposes to establish this policy by a combina- 
tion of majorities of the people ot the northern 
states, acting through the federal government, 
against the unanimous opposition of the wh«le 
people of the fifteen southern states. The judg- 
ment of the northern states, pure and simple, ad- 
versely to the judgment of the southern states, is to 
take upon itself, and prescribe and enforce its own 
solution of this great problem ot races, their distri- 
bution and relations, which reaches to the very 
social life-centres of fifteen southern states. 

A MERE ARSTIiACTION AT PRESENT. 

It is true that, at present, so far as the territories 
are concerned, the policy is a mere theory. There 
is no territory whose destiny is practically in dis- 
pute. The area within the fifteen southern states 
is more than the growth and expansion of the 
social and industrial systems of the South can at 
present occupy. 



Might not the North rest ia the hope that the I 
next generation, when it should have occasion to | 
act practically, would do so with larger experience ; 
and greater wisdom ? Might it not wait and see? 
Is it necessary for us to seize the powers of the 
governnaent to establish and enforce any policy so | 
far in advance— especially, by the dangerous 
machinery of a purely northern party creating in [ 
practice a purely northern government— more j 
especially at the hazard of scattering in ruins the , 
glorious fabric of civil liberty reared by our j 
fathers '? i 

THE THEORY ANALYZED. 

But let us confront this theory as a permanent j 
and final policy. Let us aualyze it, and see what 
would be its future value, and whether it can ever 
become established. 

XATCEAL AND MATERIAL LAWS. 

Before entering on that discussion, I pause to 
trace the natural and matenallaws which are work- 
ing out the distribution of races on our own portion 
of this continent, and shaping the social and indus- 
trial systems of the new states. 

Whoever, will study the course of emigration 
from the old states to the unsettled lands of the 
West, will find that in the main it follows the adap- 
tations of the new region to the industrial, domes- 
tic and social habitudes of those who seek to bet- 
ter their condition by the use of cheaper and richer 
soils. Tbe current of northern emigration does 
Eot deviate largely from certain parallels of lati- 
tude. The current of southern emigration, tend- 
ing in the same general direction, spreads out, 
perhaps deflects to the southwest. The volume of 
the northern current is from twice to three times 
as large as that of the southern current; and, 
therefore, tends to press southwardly the line 
where the two touch each other. Geographical 
causes favor this result. As you reach the eastern 
border of Texas, the Gulf shore turns towards the 
South. As you pass Missouri you begin to ascend 
to the more austere climates of the great slope of 
the Rocky Mountains. 

Material causes intervene to turn a portion of the 
southern emigration to the southwest and also to 
separate the element of slavery and to carry that to 
the southwest. 

SLAVERY -WITHDRAWS FROM THE TRACK OF NORTHERN 
EMIGRATION. 

The result is that slavery has no tendency to ex- 
tend itself in or towards the track of northern set- 
tlers. On the contrary, it is withdrawing and 
moving towards the tropics. Obvious before, this 
law has been rendered more conspicuous and more 
potential to mature its fruits rapidly, by the re- 
markable events which have characterized the last 
ten or fifteen years. 



MATERIAL CAUSES ACCELERATE. 

The great and steady influx of gold, acting upon 
the circulating medium and the systems of credit, 
has, to an extraordinary degree, stimulated produc- 
tion and consumption throughout all Christendom. 
One effect is seen in the transcendent growth of the 
foreign trade of all the civilized nations. Another 
is in an improvement of the physical condition of 
the masses, and an enlargement of their command 
over the necessaries, comforts and even luxuries of 
life, greater, perhaps, than they have hitherto at- 
tained in any one century. 

Cotton has been found to be the cheapest and 
most convenient material for human clothing; 
which, after food and shelter, is the first object of 
the enlarged means of expenditure by the masses. 
The spindle and tbe loom could be multiplied to 
keep pace with the augmenting demand ; but negro 
hands to cultivate the cotton fields could not. They 
must wait the slow course of nature, or be diverted 
from other employments ; and even both resources 
have been thus far insuthcieat. Through the war 
in the Crimea and the war in Italy, through the 
panic of 1S"4 and the revulsion of 1857, cotton has, 
in the main, held the even tenor of its way, in a 
range of high prices; while iron, coal, lum- 
ber, sugar and breadstuffs have undergone ex- 
treme and violent fluctuations. Cotton has been 
unceasingly out-bidding other employments for 
negro hands. It has within ten years doubled, pro- 
bably more than doubled the market value of all 
such labor. A man who to-day employs slaves in 
raising wheat or corn on the southern bank of the 
Ohio, uses labor at least twice as costly as it was 
ten years ago. His neighbor on the northern 
bank finds the moderate advance in free labor re- 
sulting from the increase in general prices, com- 
pensated by improved machinery ; and can produce 
wheat as cheaply as ten years ago. 

Cotton is struggling hard to translate tbe black 
race held in slavery to the seats of its own and 
kindred cultures. Family and social habits, an 
honorable senliment against selling dependants to- 
wards whom the worth and piety of the South con- 
sider themselves as trustees, resists; but the 
changesof life are inevitable; and the social laws 
at last prevail, as the unceasing current of a stream 
outlasts the strokes of the swimmer. I see every 
day testimonies of the actual working of these ten- 
dencies. I read, not long ago, in the Evening Post, 
an extract from the St. Louis D.inorraf, stating that 
one hundred slaves daily left St. Louis for the South. 
That statement may have been inaccurate as a mat- 
ter of detail; but the general fact cannot be ques- 
tioned. 

RESTRICTION IN THE TRACK OF SOUTHERN EMIGRA- 
TION. 

If, then, slavery has no capacity to extend itself, 
in any practical degree, into or towards the track 



10 



of northern emigratiou ; let us now inquire what 
would be the results of the restrictive policy ap- 
plied to the track of southern ccuigration. 

This, I have already observed, is, at present — 
perhaps for all our generation —a purely theoretical 
question. But let us imaf^ine that it were now a 
practical question. Let us suppo.-^e that all the 
eight and a half millions of whites and four millions 
of blacks con;posing the population of the fifteen 
southern states were concentrated in the region east 
of the boun'Jary between Alabama and Mississippi. 

I do not now decide whether the degree of density 
required for the perfection of the experiment would 
even then have been attained; and, in the progress 
towards that density, doubtless the whites not hold- 
ing slaves would have been, to a large extent, ex- 
pelled. But assume the conditions to be such that 
the cost of subsisting the slave would approach the 
value of his labor. I would like to have our philoso- 
phers and philanthropists who advise the expe- 
riment solve some dilliculties which we must antici- 
pate. 

IMPnACTICAULE OR UN.N'nCESSAUV. 

1. What is there in human history to warrant the 
idea that a people, not having yet consented to self- 
destruction, could be confined on one side of an 
imaginary line, with their physical condition stea- 
dily approximating to the want and misery which 
attend excessive density of population, when on the 
other side of that imaginary line, unoccupied and 
fertile lands invite them to abundance and prospe- 
rity? What degree of power in the government 
would be requ'red to enforce a law imposing such a 
policy upon even a feeble community ? What de- 
gree of coercion would be required against eight 



and a half millions of our race ? three times as many poij^y^ convert our sister states into negro govern- 
as achieved our revolution? Against how many and ' H,ents? Will we then allow them equality iu our 
in what proportions of the two races such coercion Union, as our Republican friends propose at the 
would have to be exerted when all the present ter- ; coming election to allow the blacks of this stale 
ritory should be filled up with population to the re- tMiuality in the elective franchise ? Would it not, 
quisite degree of density, it is impossible to pre- ^^ ^^e whole, be better to let the black man go 
diet ; but it is perfectly safe to say that the policy : towards the tropics as best he may, bond or free, 
proposed by the Republican party to be theoreti- go that, if at last we come to dissolve our Union, 
cally adopted as a finality, at vast hazard of general ^^^ dissolution may be only with the black repub- 
ruin, a generation in advance of the time when it y^^^ ^^ ^^^ tropics ; and we mav at least retain the 
could take full practical effect, would, as soon as j^^.j^.i^j^, thirteen who fought the battle cf our in- 
that time should arrive, prove wholly impraclica- dependence, and the riparian states that control 
ble without the consent of the people to whom it ,j,g navigation of the Mississippi, with white men 
would be applied : as with that consent it would be ' j-^j. tjjg rrovernin"- power? 
wholly unnecessary. 



Is it expected that the people to whom the sys- 
tem IS to be applied will be blind and deaf until it 
shall have approached such fatal results? Is it not 
inevitable that they will be as prompt to resist and 
repel as you will be to organize and inflict your 
system ? 

F.^LSE PHILANTHROPY 



4. Have we sulhciently considered whether act- 
ing upon slavery in the territories, in order to react 
upon it within the .>tates, even if it were within our 
literal authority, would not be in some sort a fraud 
on the distribution of powers provided by the con- 
stitution ? May a man get the Street Comnujsioner 
to wall up the entrance to my house on the pretext 



condition of the slave? Will not the master be 
foiced by the necessity of self-preservation into a 
struggle to over-work and underfeed the slave, 
until, failing to make the products of labor meet 
the cost of subsisting the laborer, he succumbs ; 
and the social and industrial systems topple in com- 
mon ruin? Has not philanthrcity run mad when it 
proposes to work out the liberation of the slave by 
such a process? Does it not arrogate to itself the 
infallibility of Divine wisdom, when out of humanity 
to the slave, it would, by force of law, starve him 
into freedom ? 

Does it not arrogate to itself the power of the Al- 
mighty when it attempts to establish such a system 
over fifteen communities with complete govern- 
ments, with a population of twelve and a half mil- 
lions, and occupying a region larger than half of 
Europe, by external legislation enforced by exter- 
nal povrer? If no government known to history 
has ever been strong enough to do this thing, what 
terms can adequately characterize the wild hallu- 
cination of attempting it through the limited pow- 
ers and under the sell-checking forms of confedera- 
tion? 

3. As the policy operates to restrain the emigra- 
tiou cf the owner and the slave, but not the white 
man who holds no slaves, must not the eftect 
be to cause the latter to emigrate ? Must not 
the proportion of the black race to tne white 
be incessantly increasing by the operation of 
a permanent cause ? At last, when the sys- 
tem culminates iu emancipation, must not the 
result be communities almost exclusively of blacks? 
Can the whites live in such communities? Should 
we not, in the ultimate eti'ects of the lestrictive 



■2. Does not the nature of the process imply a that it is only exercising the rights of the public 
constantly progressive deterioration iu the physical over the streets which belong to the public? May 



11 



my neighbor flood my farai because the dam which 
creates the overflow is built upon his own Und? 
May a man plant his foot firmly on the safety-valve 
and silence the eugiceer by sajing that ho does not 
interfere with the boiler? Now is not the natural 
increase by which one hundred and twenty thou- 
sand are every year added to the slave population 
as much a necessity as the existence of the present 
four millions? Is not anotherfourmillions of blacks 
within the next twenty-five years just as much a 
fact aa the present four millions? Can any man 
stop it? Is not the fact which is to come au inevita- 
ble incident to the fact which now exists? Must it 
not be dealt with as a part of the one great fact? 
To ignore this inevitable incident, is it not shallow 
in philosophy, inadequate in policy, disastrous 
failure in government? And to whom naturally 
belongs the solution of the problem it creates, ex- 
cept to those communities who have the great trust 
of the princi|-)al fact and whom we do not propose 
even to consult? Ought we to refuse even to join 
with ourselves in determining such a question, 
those who must reap the good or bear the ill of cur 
decision in a case which, so far as the track of south- 
ern emigration is concerned, cannot effect us in the 
least? Should we attempt to establish over them 
a policy — even if we sincerely think it best for them 
— which nobody among them can be found to ap- 
prove or uphold ? 

5. Would not a wise man, with a conscientious 
sense of responsibility, although theoretically op- 
posed to slavery, if he were to be invested with ab- 
solute power over the primary fact of slavery with- 
in the states, or of the incidental fact of its natural 
grovrth, find himself unable, just in proportion as 
he should study these facts, to deal with them on 
any artificial system of human devising? Well 
might Mr. Seward say that John Quincy Adams 
died despairing of a peaceful solution of the ques- 
tion ; for he had not, as Mr. Seward has not, any of 
that master-philosophy for such a problem, which 
says to the federal government. Let it alone. 

(I. If in the attempt to solve this problem accord- 
ing to our own ideas, and to enforce our solution 
throu2h the federative government, adversely to 
the whole public opinion of the southern states, we 
should break up the constitutional compact between 
us, should we not fail of establishing our policy 
with its imaginary benefits, while we should become 
the authors of the most transcendent calamity any 
generation has ever been able to inflict upon man- 
kind ? 

POLICY OF THE FATHERS. 

The traditional policy of our government, estab- 
lished by the fathers, and followed until 1S50, is to 
be studied in all the acts of Congress upon the sub- 
ject of slavery considered collectively. 

It was : 



1st. To prohibit slavery by federal legislation, at 
the instance of the North, and with the consent of 
the South, in the territories lying substantially 
within the track of northern emigration. 

2d. To leave the territories lying in the track of 
southern emigration without any federal legi-slation 
prohibiting slaverj'. 

The ordinance of 1TS7, applying the restriction 
to all territories north of the Ohio, and the Missouri 
Compromise of ISL'O, applying it to all terri'oiies 
north of the southern line of Missouri, were the 
parent measures, to which all the other acts were 
subordinate. None of the other acts of restriction 
extended their operation south of the lines estab- 
lished by those measures. 

At the adoption of the constitution the southern 
states consisted of a scattering population upon the 
eastern slopes of the Alleganies. All the people in 
the region now embraced in states lying west of the 
ridge did not much exceed the number of persons 
to-day congregated in a single ward of the city of 
New York. 

Emigration has pushed westward until 
almost two-thirds of the present population 
of the South is in a region which seven- 
ty years ago was a wilderness. On the west of 
Virginia has sprung up Kentucky ; on the west of 
North Carolina, Tennessee; on the west of Georgia 
and South Carolina, Alabama, and aftarwards Mis- 
sissippi — all formed out of the original domain of 
the United States. 

An entire tier of states on the west bank of the 
Mississippi, comprising Louisiana, Arkansas and 
Missouri have been added out of Mr. Jefferson's Lou- 
isiana purchase. This tier embraces the whole track 
of the southern emigration, extending to the North 
even beyoud that track. It carries the divisional 
line in the west, which had been deflected to the 
south by the adoption of the diagonal course of the 
Ohio, back to a point somewhat northerly of the 
line which has become the boundary between the 
free and the slave systems in the original states, by 
the voluntary action of those states. Florida 
on the south and Texas on the southwest have 
been subsequentlj- added. 

Now, in all this region, embracing the entire 
track of the southern emigration, there has been 
no legislation of the federative government inter- 
fering with the natural course of southern emigra- 
tion, or disturbing the action of the physical laws 
by which it is governed, or preventing the establish- 
ment by the new communities thus formed of in- 
dustrial and social systems, similar to these of the 
states from which the emigration proceeded. 

THEIR SELF-RESTRAIXT VOLrKTARY. 

I know the idea isinculcated that the government 
has abstained from such legislation only from defect 
of power or in submission to actual compact. 



12 



To this I answer, iird, that if this allegaUon were 
true, it would show that the policy of universal re- 
striction of slavery, which has been ascribed to the 
fathers, was, at best, but a theory, never reduced to 
practice ; nor of much weight as indicating the 
matured judgment as to practical legislation of 
statesmen who were never called on to put a specu- 
lative opinion into operation, or of the people who 
were never called on to submit to its effects ; 
secondly, that there is no foundation whatever for 
the allef^ation that the fathers would have applied 
the restrictive system to the track of southern cm'- 
gration, if they could ; or that they omitted to do so 
from any such necessity as is pretended, or fronj 
any reason other than their ideas of the self- 
retraint which a wise policy imposes on practical 
statesmen dealing with such a question. They had 
every means, method and power open to their use 
which have been proposed to be employed for that 
purpose in our modern times. I say this advisedly ; 
and though I cannot now stop to discuss details, I 
hold myself ready to maintain the statement. 

Washington, Jefferson and Madison, all Virgini- 
ans, were undoubtedly opposed in theory to slavery, 
and looked forward to its ultimate extinction ; but 
they were practical statesmen, and they did not 
make any serious endeavors to surmount the intrin- 
sic difficulties of the subject, either in Virginia or 
Kentucky, where it was open to their legal and con- 
stitutional action, still less in southern territories 
through the federative government. They proba- 
bly were never able to see clearly any satisfactory 
method and means of giving effect to their desires, 
even in the infancy of the institution; and they 
wisely left it to itself until the people interested 
should feel themselves able to solve the problem. 
Ko men hadmorepower to have changed the practi- 
cal policy and practical results which I have shown 
to be facts of our history. That policy grew up and 
matured its fruits during the period of their ad- 
ministrations, and of their unapproachable influ- 
ence over the public mind of this country, without 
opposition or dissent from them, often with their 
concurrence. Jefferson and Madison survived the 
time of the Missouri controversy ; were then in 
retirement, free from all bias of political aspiration, 
sedulous only for the welfare and happiness of 
their country ; and certainly not wanting in philan- 
thropy towards any of the human race. They 
have both left on record their earnest, thoughtful, 
warning protest against the whole scheme of 
applying through federal legislation the restrictive 
system to southern territory, contrary to the will 
of the existing southern states. That a party 
organization exclusively northern, dominating in 
the federal government, should enforce such a 
system was never within their contemplation. That 
fact, if it shall be to-daj' inevitable, will be the 
political calamity of a later generation. 



JIODE AND TERMS OF ADJUSTING THE CONTROVEItST. 

I assertthaf a controversy between powerful com- 
munities organized into governments, of a nature 
like that which now divides the North and South, 
can be settled only by convention or \>y war. I 
affirm this upon the universal principles of human 
nature, and the collective experience of all man- 
kind. I aver it, in defiance of the babbling 
speech-makers who set up for statesmen without 
possessing or understanding one element of that 
chai'acler ; who pretend to superiority of principle, 
because they denounce compromise, which is, in 
the very nature of things, the only solution possi- 
ble of such a difference between such parties. 

By convention, I mean, not an ancient compact 
of confederation, but a fresh, living, practical as- 
sent of the wills of the parties to conditions in 
which those wills are moderately and fairly repre- 
sented, so that the acquiescence of both parties 
may be secured. 

IXTEIiESTS OF THE PARTIES. 

We must study the practical interests of both 
parties in the questions, in order to sec what con- 
ditions will be adequate. The elements of the 
case are simple. 

The northern states have a direct and important 
interest in keeping the natural course of their emi- 
gration into the territories substantially undis- 
turbed, with freedom to such of their people as over- 
flow into the territories to establish in their new 
seats such systems of industry and society as they 
have been accustomed to at home. 

The southern states have exactly tHe same inter- 
est. Both have an indirect interest in the forma- 
tion of new states, as it effects the balance of power 
between the two classes in the confederation. 

Now in respect to the first interest, so long 
as the federal government refrains from in- 
terference, there is really no conflict except in 
imagination. For as long a future as the hu- 
man vision can clearly scan, both have room 
enough, and they do not daeire to occupy the 
same space. Slavery not only refuses to go 
into or towards the track of the northern settlers in 
the territories, but withdraws faster than white la- 
bor can replace it in the territories and contiguous 
parts of adjacent states. 

At an early period southern settlers touched the 
parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, which en- 
croached upon their track, sooner than northern 
settlers reached any portion of those states ; and a 
feeble disposition to carry slavery there was mani- 
fested, but it was inefl'ectual. 

The only other tendency to conflict arose on the 
border of Kansas, contiguous to Missouri. The 
divisional line established by the admission of Mis- 
souri with slavery, and the restriction of slavery 
from the territories west of it down to its southern- 



13 



most boundary, became at IMs point perpendicular 
to the natural line of divibion between the two 
westward streams of emigration. It would not 
have been strange, therefore, if some settlers had 
crossed the bounaarj between the two with slav- 
ery ; but it could gain no stable footing there; for 
the tendency tor it to move down southward from 
Missouri was stronger than for it to ascend west- 
ward into Kansas. And a vast emigration from 
the Dortlieru hives was swarming towards both. 

It is my well-considered conviction that not one 
state is now free (rem slavery, which would have 
accepted it if no restriction by federal legislation 
had ever been enacted. 

FOnilS OF COMPROMISE. 

Compromise of the territorial (question has two 
forms. The one is by a divisional liuo practically 
tiiireed upon by the V/vo sections, and declared by 
act of Congress. The other is worked out by natu- 
ral and maferial causes, and finally declared by each 
locality wUen it is admitted as a state. 

As an original question, I think the latter mode 
the best; for it avoids the struggle in fixing the 
line by the fcilerative government ; and it willmore 
exactly respect the natural courses of emigratinn. 

As to the interest of ihe two parties in the bal- 
ance of power in the confederated government, the 
North certainl_v has nothing to fear. It gains in po- 
pulation at least seven hundred thousand as often 
as tiie South gains three hundred thousand, and it 
can form new states more rapidly. It has the ad- 
vantage of greater numbers. The South, when at- 
tacked, has the advantage of greater unity. 

UNION OR DISUNION. 

Can the North understand the full import of the 
federative idea? Can it apply that idea completely 
to all therelatioQS of the slavery questionV 

That is the problem of the continued existence i 
of our Union in a government &t confederated states. ' 
Majorities in all the uortheru states against all the i 
South are not without extreme ditiiculry formed or i 
combined, and being wholly unnatural, cannct last J 
long enough to dictate or to fashion a permanent [ 
policy for tbe Union. i 

Such a result could never be reached except amid 
an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, 
and in an entire failure of the northern people to ; 
see that the conflict is anything more to the south- t 
ern people than it appears to be in the North — an i 
ordinary struggle of political parties. This state of ; 
parlies is only a paroxysm. Yet tbe North may, in \ 
a paroxysm, alarm and repel the South out of tbe ; 
Union. i 

LOGICAL RESULT AFTER DISUNION. j 

If it should do so, and if we should yet escape or i 
recover from civil war, would we not soon wish to i 
establish treaties of peace — of free trade between | 
them and us — of unobstructed intercourse between ; 
our citizens? Might we not even desire an alliance i 
for common defence ? Is it not elear that such ar- ! 
rangemcnts would be eminently wise and eminently | 
conducive to the prosperity and welfare of both 
parties V would not such an arransrement be a salu- i 
lary extension and improvement of the system I 
which modern civilization is applying by diplomacy ! 
between independent nations all over the world? j 

If these results were once successfully accom- ! 
plished we should have restored an imperfect ap- 
proach, poor and miserable indeed — -far wor.^e than 
the old confederation— to what our great forefathers 
intended in our federative government, which they 
framed and which we shall have broken into pieces ; 
in that case should we have any idea that it 
would be either our moral right or duty to inter- 



i fere, in any manner, with slavery within their bor- 
; ders, or to suppress, b}' force, the natural growth 
j of new communities like their own by the iuevit- 
: able increase of their population? 
t Is it necessary for us to travel through all this 
I dreary cycle to reach a result which it is just as 
; wise, just as necessary for us now to adopt? 
\ Through what human misery, what individual ruin, 
I what public calamity, would we then have at- 
j tained a compulsory, and no doubt contented, in- 
I action as to slavery in all those aspects in which it 
I now makes us fanatical. 

I say contented inaction; for in that case we 

I should see and feel, that it was no more our moral 

right or duty to interfere with slavery in a southern 

state or territory than in the Empire of Brazil. We 

i should thus, over the ruins of our confederated 

1 government, have been brought to some sense of 

i the true theory of lecal self-government under our 

I federal constitution. Our misfortune would be 

that our wisdom had come too late. 

PERSONAL EXPLANATION. 

It is with reluctance that I mingle one word of a 
personal nature in this discussion. But I must an- 
siver my personal friends of tbe Evening Post, 
who have couiteously invited this discussion, so 
far as to say that I never held any opinion which 
could justify either the policy or the organization of 
the Bepublican party. If I had clone so, I should 
not hesitate to frankly renounce so grave an error. 
I admit consistency, so far as it indicates conscien- 
tiousdeliberation and prudence in adoptingopinions 
or in conduct, to be a quality which inspires con- 
fidence. But I do not consider it so great a virtue 
as a fixed purpose to do right; and a single modifica- 
tion in a man's opinions on one of the questions 
which have occupied the public mind during the 
period of twenty-five years, ought not to shake an 
established character for consistency, especially if 
it be moderate, reasonable and free from every taint of 
selfishness. But, in truth, I never adopted the doc- 
trine of absolute and universal exclusion, by federal 
legislation, of slavery trom all territories, and still 
less that of the exclusion of new slave states ; or the 
philosophical theory on which the doctrines are 
founded. 

Mr. Greeley, last fall, detailed and repeated his 
personal recollection of the anti-Texas meetiug of '44 
at the Tabernacle, in which, as he alleged, I joined 
with him. His obvious motive was to embitter 
against me the resentments of Republicans who 
once belonged to the school of radical democracy. 
A candidate, when under the actual circumstances, 
as was known to the gentleman at whose instance 
I was nominated, and all my friends, that an elec- 
tion would have been a calamity to me, I felt at 
liberty to treat this mis- statement — m s-reccUec- 
tion, as I am wiling to believe it — as I treatid 
all similar ones of the canvass, with silent 
indifference. In lS-44 I was strongly in- 
clined to the theory in respect to the tendency 
of slavery to confine itself to us own natural track, 
which subsequent reflection has established in my 
mind, aud which I have developed in this letter ; 
and I neither said nor did anything inconsistent 
with it. I thought then that the question ought to 
be decided, not on the ideas either of New Eng- 
land or of Mr. Cdlhoun, but on general considerE- 
tions ot national policy ; that the acquisition of 
Texas was expedient, but ought to be conducted in 
a prudent and proper manner. The provincial 
ideas of New England were not more ofl'ended by 
that measure than by the acquisition of Louisiana. 
They did not so strongly threaten to dissolve the 
Unon, as they did on the same grounds, when the 



u 



act was accompllsbeJ which gave the Mississippi to ' 
us all. and to the North, Iowa, Minnesota and the 
terntoiies stretching to the J'acitic. I presume 
that those from whom I then dinered,and who now 
impeach my consistency, will advise a civil war to , 
keep Texas and her kindre<l states in the Union if, 
they should now attempt to go out. j 

On the acquisition of California, the North univer- 
sally claimca that its .v/'//'^.- should not be changed 
b}' "the act of the federal government. That 
was then the leading idea of the radical demo- 
crats of this state, as expressed in their 
most authentic and authoritative declara- 
tion. In assenting to that abstract idea, be- 
yond which I never individually went, I did so 
in a sense of equitable partition, under which wc 
had justified our acceptance of Texa? ; and might 
accept Cuba— an abstract idea, however, which it 
was soon scea could not afford a perfect eolulion of 
the whole question in all its future aspects aud ap- 
plications, and which at that time was practically 
satisfied by the admission of California. Since that 
time the increasing development of the tendency 
of slavery to withdraw from even a contiguity to 
the truck of northern emigration, and the immense 
iuUux of population from abroad ought lo con\nnce 
every lellecting mind that whatever legal theory is 
adopted, our old habit of federal restriction over 
our por don of the territories can be safely aban- 
doned, while any theory which should interfere 
wi'.h the track of southern emigration cannot be 
safely or rightfully applied by the legislation of the . 
fcdeial government. 

The division in the democratic party of this state 
in Is-is bears no analogy to the Republican organi- 
zation of today. It would not have happened, ex- 
cept for what was deemed to be a violation of the 
right of representation in a national convention ; 
and the division was the year aftcrcomposed, whi'e 
the slavery question was still unsettled. Wise or 
unwise, rijiht or wrong, it was in substance a mere 
protest. It is known that my personal wish then 
was, that its form should not bave gone bpyond its 
true practical character. The scheme of a perma- 
nent northern parly was not, so lar as 1 know, en- 
tertaioed among the radual democrats, except m ; 
the mind of one man, with whom it was a tneie un- 
develo[)td idea, soon abandoned, but repumed in 
]>'i.'i, when he led his followers into the Hepublcan 
camp. The worst conseiuence of the division in 
184s was, not like the division of the democratic 
party now, to bring m a sectional candidate 
of a se-tional party, but merely to let in a 
national party, wiili Taylor aud Fillmore at 
its head, under whom the'slavery questions were 
all wisely compromised. On that adjuslment 1 have 
ever stood. Willing to accept the modern policy of 
toial federal non-aetion in place of the system 
of division by federal legisla;ioP, I nevertheless 
used all my inlluence, at whatever saciitice of rela- 
tions, to res'st the raising of the question of the re- 
peal of the Missouri Con)i>roiuise, because 1 ihoucht 
a theoretical conformity lo even awi»es\s*ein dear- 
ly purchased by breaking the tradition of ancient 
pacification on such a (piestion and between snch 
part.e-. At the same tunc, merely a private cili/.en 
mvself, I appreciate the dilliculiy a public man has 
in'actiug against a general principle for thf sake of 
moiely i)rudential coiisideratiuns, especially amid a 
conflict of Stetsons and of parlies. I Ibresuw on 
the formation of the Kepubhcan party, the evils and 
danaers which it would cieate, if it sLould succeed, 
as it could not have dme wrhcut grtut advent lions 
aids, in coaibining hu unbroken mass of nonhein 
mHJorities ; and 1 communicated my opinion lo for- 
mer political associates who joined ihe new orgau- 



izntion. It is known to many that my whole action' 
since has been dictated by this conviction. I have 
gone through this explanation on an invitation from 
those who were once my political as well as person- 
al friends, in order to demonstrate that I have every 
right to be heard by them, fairly and candidly, when 
I now state the limitations of our rights and duties. 

Let nic say a'so that it was natural that on the 
happening of the events which gave rise to these 
questions, the northern mind should at tirst apply 
to them — too loosely and broadly I admit — the iaeas 
which it had been accustomed to apply to the 
subject of slavery at home; ideas which the pro- 
gress of events and the maturing of opinion have 
shown mast be greatly limited in their appli.'iuion 
in order to adapt them to the theory of our federa^ 
five system. 

Let me add, that in renouncing the habit of fede- 
ral legislition as to slavery in which we all grevv 
up, and advocating the idea of federal non luter* 
ference with tbe industrisil system of the South, I 
but conform to that sound political philosophy 
which, upon all the g'-eit industrial questions of 
our times, has always guided not myself alone, but 
all radical democrats ; and which the Eve.vin(; 1'ost, 
i/> all c'/.vf.v, with this single inconsistent, disastrous 
exception, even now applies and ably champions in 
conspicuous antagonism to the entire political theo- 
ry and persistent practice of the party with which 
it IS now, in mj- judgment, unnaturally, and there- 
fore, I hope, but temporarily associated. 

COXCI.CSIOXS. 

Jly conclusions are : 

l."Thai the soulhern states will not, by any pos- 
sibility, accept the avowed creed of the Uepublican 
party' as the permanent policy of the federative 
government as to slavery, either in the states or ter- 
ritories; and, 

2. That upon this creed the Republican party will 
not establish any affiliations with considerable mi- 
norities in the southern states. 

All the evidence is that the non-slaveliold- 
ers are, generally, at least, as hostile to the 
Rfpublican creed as the slaveholders. All exfie- 
lience shows thut an inteie>t very (ar less ex- 
tensive, important and fundiLnicntal ihan that of the 
slaveholders in the Sou'h, usually unites the whole 
local community in its support, especially against 
outside interference. And in this case, besides, 
there is a powerful motive, common to all, to pre- 
serve the social suijremacy of their race. The 
very attempt lo organize, by outside in^tl^;alioo, a 
stpirate class of non-slaveholders against the gene- 
ral opinion of ihe$e coniiiiunities, would be itself a 
new and intolernble irritation. The dream of a Re- 
publican party in the South is a nere illusion. 

:'■. A condition of parties in which the Icderative 
government shall be carried on by a party having 
no atliliations in the southern stales, is impos.-ible 
to continue. Such a government would be out of 
all relation lo those stiites. It wonid have neither 
' the nerves of sensatior. which convey intilligence 
to the intellect of ihe body politic, nor Ihe liga- 
menis and muscles which hold its parts U)>;ctlier, 
' and move them in hariimny. It would be in sub- 
stance tbe governnieiii of one peofle by nnoiber 
pe<q)le. That .Mstem will not do with our race. 
The lifieen orguni/cd states to be subjected lo it 
now occupy a region as large as Fiance, Italy, the 
Ausirian htujjire, ihe (ierman states, and the liiit- 
ish Is'es. Ill niv judgnieii', such a condition of 
ihiugs cou'd not liccunie C!>nipleie in all the depart- 
ments of liie govciumeiir., before tOe ant!igr>nis:u of 
the minoiiy would throw off the governnient, by 
secession Irum the Union. 



15 



4. Nothing short of the recession of the "Republi- 
can party to the point of total and absolute non- 
action on the subject of slavery in the states and 
territories could enable it to reconcile to itself the 
people ot the South. Even then it would have 
^reat and fixed antipathies to overcome ; and men 
and parties act chietiy from habi'. 

. Will the Rtpublican party submit itself to this 
inevitable necessity to revohuionize its whole char- 
acter y To attemjit this change and not to perish 
as a dominant paity is barely poi-sible. Not to at- 
tempt and accomplis-h it and vet to live as an as- 
pendant power in our Union is totally impossible. 
The Republican paity must become as national iu 
i's stucture as the wtiig party was, and s-ubmit to 
^he necei'sary conditions ol such nationality, in 
order to be rapaole of governing the country. It 
must travel tbrough the entire cycle of retrogres- 
sion, and demonstrate that ifs existence in its pre- 
sent form was a mistake. Tbe natioual whig party, 
if it had not been disbanded, might much sooner 
and more easily bave taken the government, and 
could bavd done everything wbicb is possible for 
the Republican party to accomplish without dissolv- 
ing tbe Union. 

<;!. The election of Mr. Lincoln, if it should occur, 
will place the Executive head of the federal govern- 
ment in the fa'se and unnatural position I have de- 
picted ; that is to say, place it out of all relation to 
the people of hfteen states. 

To the eyes of these states it appears as the fore- 
runner of a complete system of the same character 
in the federal government. It fills their people with 
alarm ; it excites strong resentments. 

It will be a small alleviation that the result will 
bave coine about in some degree by divisions in tbe 
democratic party ; and by dexterous use of electo- 
ral forms, wbereby the northern majorities will con- 
stitute little over one-third of the whole vote cast. 

It will be a greater alleviation, if the House of 
iRepresentatives should change adversely to the 
Republican patty. 

7. Our noitbern people look at this thing in the 
light of the ideas wnich prepossess their own minds. 
Tbcy overlook one fact which renders the position 
of tbe parties unequal — the fact that slavery exists 
at the South and not at the North. They claim 
equality in the operation of their ideas with those 
ot the other party, which is in many respects pecu- 
liarly and exclusively' allected by tbeir operation. 

They ask, have we net a right to elect a President 
in a constitutional manner by our votes? You have, 
in obedience to the fundamental ideas of our con- 
federation, no more moral right to do so on the basis 
of your present party organization than you bave 
to do a thousand other things which the laws and 
constitution allow, but which reason, justice, public 
policy and fraternal sympathy forbid. 
I Tbe South gave us Washinaton, Jefferson, Madi- 
son, Monroe, .lackson, I'olk, Taylor, and we voted 
for them all. We otter them Lincoln, and they say 
they caouot vote for bim because his iiolicy is fatal 
to what, tj them, is a vital interest, while to us it is 
but an abstract idea. We answer that we know 
better than they ; if they will not agree with us we 
will not compromise, we will have our own wav I 

8. A southern partisan presidency on such acon- 
troversy, in unison with the sou'bern state govern- 
ments, would be an evil, even if unavoidable ; but 
it would merely olf-^nd tbe /./.«s^of the North. A 
porthern partisan presidency on such a controversy, 
in conilict with tbe southern state governments, is 
manifestly pregnant with perils which no past ex- 
perience has witnes.sed, and which threaten the 
whole fabric of our Union with swift destruction. 

i'. If we are not wise enough to abstain from 



'• creating such n state of things, what right have we 
to suppose the South will accept it witb patience? 
Seeing the transcendent nature of the inteiest— they 

, have not the restraint of a ])aity among thtm hold- 
ing the sentiments of the northern majority— they 
think that they are wronged— they feel put upon 
self-defence. Have we a right to assume that they 

: will act witb what, from cur point of view, would 

; be a pradent moderation V 

I fear that Iroiii the very election of Mr. Lincoln, 

i if it should unlorunafely lioppen, we should be em- 
barked upon a frightful agitation in all the South — 
general alarm and excitements — state conventions 
to deliberate upon tbe continuance of the Union. I 
recoil from contemplating the but too probable con- 
sequences in which all this must end. I know that 

' tbe most wise, prudent, conseivatne and patriotic 
men of the most Union-loving states of the South 

i are filled with conslernation when they think tbe 

: great surge of popular esci:tment which they will 

' be called on to breast. 

I 10. What will Mr. Lincoln do? Can he be ex- 
pected, as President, to undtrstand the state of 

■ things in any other sense than that of bis own par- 
tisan policy? Can he avoid the attempt to main- 

! tain the power of his jiarty by the same means 
' which will bave acquired it? Can be emancipate 

■ himself from the dominion ofthe ideas, associations 
and influences which will have accompanied him in 
bis rise to power? Can he be expected to act in any 

' new direction with sufficient breadth of view and 
hrmness of purpose? 

If be shall fail adequately to respond to these 
great exigencies, the inevitable lesult as it presents 
iiself to my judgment has been already sullicicntly* 
indicated. 

11. If he should act in a spirit of large patriot- 
ism what will be his position and means? 

Tbe history of Jackson's administration throws 
some light upon the difliculties which, in a vastly 
aggravated form, he may have to encounter, and 
upon tho methods of action by which, if at all, they 
must be overcome. 

Jackson had to deal with a ciuestion compara- 
tively unimportant and far less purely sectional. 
Asa southern man of great popularity and renown, 
he stood strong in the'confidence of all the southern 
people whos^ votes had jast contributed to raise 
him to power. He was the bead of a strong Jack- 
sonian party organization iu every southern state. 
CIny, the head of the adverse tarifl' interest, was 
also a soathern man, and at the same time the head 
of a great party in all those ^tates. And yet, with 
all these immense advantages, Jackson, because the 
controversy was partly sectional, was compelled to 
exert all his power and to Cisplay all bis courage 
in order, with tbe aid ot Clay and Webster, to ac- 
conipiish its adjustment, evm upon a basis of com- 
promise and concession, and he accomplished this 
result at last by fighting the b-*ttle through thepub- 
lic opinion of the disall'ected section. 

Lincoln, if he should, in a crisis far more difficult, 
stand in the place of Jack«on, to confront a public 
disorder infinitely more expensive, deeply seated 
and daDg»ious-as he phould s retch his eye a 
thonsand miles ovpr tbe region of disall'ecuon, 
would see not one adherent ; not one leader of local 
opinion with whom he wus in ( s"abiished relations of 
friendship, symjinthy or siijiport ; not one repre- 
sentative to speak in bis name, with power to win 
the ear of tbe masses ; not oneof six hundred news- 
papers devoted to ptohtics, and half that number 
devoted to other discii*si<ins, which bad not been 
preoccupying the minds of th«* people with dis- 
trust, hatred, or tear of him. Without any of the 
means by which combats of opinion are fought 



16 



among a free people, himself an offence, an obstrut;- : 
lion, instead of a power to save— the whole strain, ; 
the whole shock of the crisis would be thrown 
upon the mere intrinsic strength of cur federal ! 
government. ! 

I cannot, for one, assent to the creation of such | 
a state of things. I have a faith in our popular 
system, which never before faltered, but 1 daie not 
precipitate it upon such a trial. It is not a fair ex- 
periment. In my judgment, those who think it free \ 
from the most imminent peril, display the courage : 
of men who havmg eyes cannot see. An incredu- 
lity, even more serene and stubborn, in the minds ; 
of mouarchs, ministers and peoples, has often been 
broken by revolution or by war. Such a crisis as 
that in which Lincoln's election would place our 
country can only be prudently treated after fully 
comprehending it. History is full of illustrations ^ 
of the inadequate policy which meets civil convul- 
sions, step by step, with concessions, at every stage, 
insufficient and too late, because the authors of the | 
policy could not anticipate events, and events j 
would not wait. j 

Elect Lincoln, and we invite those perils which , 
we cannot measure ; we attempt in vain to conquer ] 
the submission of the South to an impracticable ; 
and intolerable policy ; our only hope must be that 
as President he will abandon the creed, the priuci- \ 
pies and pledges on which he will have been elected. 

Defeat "Lincoln, and all our great interests and 
hopes are, unquestionably, safe. 

If thus, or in any mode, we escape the perils ot 



which his election will be the signal, our noble ship 
of state will issue forth from the breakers now 
foaming around and ahead, and spring forward into 
the open sea in all the majesty of her strength and 
beauty. 

But if the Providence, which has hitherto guided 
and guarded our country, shall at last abandon us 
to our foolish and wicked strifes, I behold a far dif- 
ferent scene. 

It is too late ! It is too late ! We are upon the 
breakers. Whose eye quails now ? Whose cheek 
blanches ? It is not mine, who felt a " provident 
fear," and have done all I could. Where is the e.Y- 
ceilent President of the Chaniber of Commerce, 
whom they perched up in the forecastle to assure 
us that a good look-out was kept for our Sdfety y 
Where are the dozen " gieat stakes,' as Mr. Web- 
ster used to call them, whom they planted closely 
around him to shut out from the sight of the crew 
the beacon erected by Washington V A^'here 
are the thoughtless, reckless seamen who 
taunted me with cowardice when I vainly strove to 
warn them V I hear only the wailing cry ol selfish 
terror as I sit upon the straining timbers, and watch 
the rage of the sea. My mind is filled, my heart 
swells with the thought, that yon wave which towers 
before us will eugult more of human happiness and 
human hopes than have perished in any one catas- 
trophe since the world began. 



New York, October 20, 1800. 



S. J. TILDEN. 






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